Debby Applegate

Debby Applegate is an American historian and biographer. She is the author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age and The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

Born in Eugene, Oregon, Applegate attended Amherst College as an undergraduate, where she began a two-decade fascination with famous alumnus Henry Ward Beecher, a 19th-century abolitionist minister who was later the subject of a widely publicized sex scandal. She made Beecher the subject of her dissertation in American Studies at Yale, where she received a Ph.D. After several more years of research, Applegate published The Most Famous Man in America, which was praised by critics and awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Her second book, Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age, an account of the life and times of the notorious Manhattan brothel-keeper Polly Adler, was published in November 2021 after thirteen years of extensive research.

Biography Born in Eugene, Oregon, Applegate grew up in Clackamas, Oregon, graduating from Clackamas High School. She was raised in what she described as an "unusual religious environment": her mother, from a Mormon family, became a New Thought minister, while her father was an Irish Catholic. Her contributions have appeared in The Journal of American History and The New York Times. Applegate's initial chapters were written in what she considered an overly academic voice, so to write a biography with popular appeal, she studied fiction writing, including techniques for suspense and pornographic writing. "I made my way through my first book by trial and error, using my cobbled-together collection of examples, borrowed exercises and jerry-rigged postulations, to navigate the enormous task of fashioning an intellectually and emotionally compelling account out of the scattered detritus of a person’s life," wrote Applegate in a 2016 essay on making the leap from academic historian to popular biographer. She structured the resulting book as a psychological thriller. The book was finally released in 2006 by Doubleday.

Reception The Most Famous Man in America sold well and was praised by critics. Kirkus Reviews called it a "beautifully written biography of America's one best-known preacher ... An exceptionally thorough and thoughtful account of a spectacular career that helped shape and reflect national preoccupations before, during and after the Civil War." Publishers Weekly wrote that "this assessment of Beecher is judicious and critical. Applegate gives an insightful account." Michael Kazin, reviewing the book for The New York Times, stated that Applegate's writing occasionally "loses its force in a thicket of personal details", but concluded that the book is "a biography worthy of its subject".

On April 16, 2007, the book was announced as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. Applegate said of her win, "Half of it is just good luck ... Had it come out four years ago, I don't think the climate was ready for it. The religious right intersection with politics is very important now."

Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age Applegate's second book is a biography of Polly Adler, New York City's notorious Prohibition-era brothel-keeper whose 1953 memoir A House is Not a Home became a New York Times Bestseller and a 1963 film starring Shelley Winters. The decision to write the book came after a year of research into 1920s New York City cultural history, during which Applegate discovered Adler's memoir and grew fascinated by it. "Innocently strolling the library stacks, I stumbled upon yet another big, bewitching American character — a once infamous but now forgotten madam named Polly Adler," wrote Applegate in an essay honoring the centennial of the Pulitzer Prizes. "Before I knew it, I’d signed another contract and marched back into the swamp." In New York magazine Chris Bonanos called it, “a hugely digressive book in the best possible way: You meet a lot of gangsters and high rollers in Adler’s New York, and they cross paths with novelists, entertainers, professional boxers, and now and then a mayor or a Rockefeller.” In the New York Times, reviewer Paulina Bren wrote, "Replete with accounts of Polly’s many court battles, newspaper headlines, mobster dealings and society gossip, “Madam” is a breathless tale told through extraordinary research. Indeed, the galloping pace of Applegate’s book sometimes makes the reader want to pull out a white flag and wave in surrender — begging for her to slow down."